Will he, won't he? Callaghan's shadow hangs over Brown

Neil Kinnock, who sometimes has Gordon Brown's ear, remains scornful of early election talk. But other sceptics are beginning to waver in Bournemouth as the rumour mill grinds away. "I used to think it was all rubbish, but now I'm not so sure," one well-connected operator admits on the choppy Dorset shore.

Labour MPs in marginal seats, contacted yesterday by the Guardian, were divided on the merits of a campaign next month - next spring or in 2009 - but mostly happy to go with the boss's hunch, whenever he decides to share it.

That will not be in his first speech to the conference as prime minister this morning. It suits Mr Brown to equivocate as he did again with Andrew Marr yesterday. Uncertainty keeps his party focused and united, the unions disciplined (they nodded through illiberal changes to conference rules yesterday), and the Tories jittery.

Ostensibly the case for going to the country soon, barely halfway through the 2005 parliament, is to allow Mr Brown to claim his own mandate, a posh way of saying stuff the Tories and Lib Dems while the going still looks good.

The "Brown bounce" polls are holding up. Donors, both rich and horny-handed, are returning to Labour now the police have retired hurt. A quick election would, they argue, help to neutralise the cumulative effect of Lord Ashcroft's money - the kind of constituency patronage last seen in the novels of Trollope.

On TV and in newspaper Brownite ministers like Ed Balls and Douglas Alexander blow hot and cold. Like Jim Callaghan's lieutenants in 1978-79 they may not know their chief's mind either: Callaghan's delay in 1978 astonished the cabinet. "We giggled," recalls Roy Hattersley. Their private case for keeping options open is that they have a duty to consider them all seriously. If they delay - then lose in 2009-10 - the hindsight merchants will tell them "we told you to go early", as they did to Callaghan.

Tom (now Lord) McNally, Lord Jim's political secretary at the time, says Callaghan delayed in 1978 because he had taken a list of marginal seats to study at home - and realised he'd lose. Lord Hattersley insists he'd have won.

Such uncertainties must dog Brown in 2007. Most MPs seem to think it a fine judgment either way. Some worry that they lack the time or volunteers on the doorstep to risk it when Brown's leadership credentials are still under warranty.

Even if Alistair Darling's soothing conference medicine proves correct, post-Northern Rock doubts will linger for months. "When did Brown first know about its problems?" was only one of 10 sharp questions the Tories asked after the PM's interview with Marr.

NHS, immigration, Europe, debt, Iraq, there are plenty of other minefields which might explode - as bad trade figures did when a complacent Harold Wilson thought he had it in the bag in 1970, but lost. Going now just to stuff the Tories might suddenly look like opportunism, bullying even. It's lonely at the top.